The first be. Living seeds were sowed some 20 years ago. The school opened with just one child – Victoria –, and a clear desire to build the best possible environment for girls and boys to grow and develop with full power and autonomy. 

Our idea has always been to offer a fertile ground on which children could experience, create, investigate and exchange, and be actively involved in the construction of their own knowledge.

We believe that children are powerful and have all the resources within them, just like seeds that one day may grow into trees. Our role as a school is to nourish and sustain these seeds by creating a thriving environment that will allow them to develop to their fullest potential. 

Affection has been our main nutrient, right from the start. We bonded together, followed their progress and developed close ties with both the children and their families and saw the entire be. Living community gradually grow and get stronger over time.

During the first 10 years, we dedicated ourselves exclusively to Early Childhood education, offering a welcoming yet challenging learning space for the little ones. In our daily activities, children have meaningful learning experiences through a variety of situations and languages.

Children teach us the importance of playing. Through play, they perceive, understand, and relate naturally to the real world. Therefore, we have always made a point of ensuring enough time and a space for children to play and explore the most different types of toys and materials that will blossom their cognitive and emotional development. When children play, they build their knowledge of the world and experience socialization, which is of utmost importance for life in a collective context.

Along with play, leadership, and affection, bilingualism has been one of the building blocks of our school since its foundation. Here at be. Living, most learning activities take place in English. Because of this immersion, children learn and develop the English language similarly to the way they learn Portuguese, and we see our children still at a very early age gradually taking the English vocabulary and language structure used in the school routine beyond the walls of the school and into their daily lives, with more possibilities of reading and experiencing the world.

In 2009, after listening to a group of mothers and fathers express that they would like to see our work expanded, we decided to branch out the school and launched the Elementary School Program (Grade 1-5) we have today. It was very rewarding to watch the children who started their learning experience way back in the school reach a more advanced stage in their autonomy and critical thinking development process. We saw our Elementary students reflect upon the importance of being part of a multicultural bilingual project and realize that reading, writing, and speaking English fluently increase their possibilities of communicating and interacting with the world. This is something they perceive in daily life, when they are doing their research, when they exchange information with children from other parts of world to understand other cultures, during their time off school, when they are travelling, in the movies they watch, and even in the games they play. All this significant experience enables them to develop similar skills both in English and Portuguese, and our role has been to help them use their natural curiosity to build knowledge, to investigate and research, to question, and express different opinions.

 When we think about educating these children, we are thinking of full, integral development of individuals within a social process. Our goal has been to help them become active citizens capable of proposing changes, who understand that to live in society, we must learn to understand others, listen to others, and build together.

After 20 years reaping and sowing so many meaningful memories and lessons and going through the most diverse challenges – including this pandemic, we are happy to feel the “scent of our flowers” in the air, reverberating awareness, empathy, solidarity, and raising questions and reflections about the way we live.

Today, after caring for so many children, we strive to ensure that the proximity, dialogue and bond we developed way back with the first child of our school will resist the passing of time and spread across our expanded community.

We understand that our collective space is fertile and solid. When we think of sowing the wisdom of children, we are thinking of all the people who are also involved in this educational process. Therefore, we must also thank your team of educators, collaborators and, above all, the families, with whom we have always maintained an open dialogue and aligned towards our biggest focus: the children.

We gave our very best to them, just like those who take care of plants with all love and responsibility. Educating is our daily work and our life mission. We are very grateful for this opportunity.

May we continue firmly in our journey in search of knowledge and wisdom, with lots of affection, dedication and courage!